The Comic Artist and His Assistants

This is an anime about a man and his dream. His dream of panties. Seeing panties, smelling panties, touching panties.... Yeah that's honestly most of what this show is about. Oh, and a there's also little stuff about making manga. But it's ecchi manga about panties anyway. Each episode is divided into three or four different scenes, and almost all of them deal with panties and Aito's love for them in one way or another. This is a harem anime about a mangaka of an ecchi manga and the girls around him. His three assistants (though two are hardly ever seen actually helping his manga atall), his editor, and several other minor characters. The main character, Aito, is absolutely ridiculous. His emotions seem bipolar and he can quickly flip from being a perverted idiot to a sympathetic and kind mentor in the blink of an eye. His voice during many of the perverted scenes gets so high it's annoying (though I will give credit to his voice actor for having excellent vocal range) yet at other times he can be quite likable. He has balls of steel and, unlike many male protagonists in ecchi anime, has almost no fear of asking to see a girl's underwear or to touch them (in fact he even succeeds a couple times). As for the girls, they are mostly archetypal, though they do break out of their archetypes and become unique on several occasions. Aito's main assistant, Ashisu, is the girl who least fits into any archetype. She is Aito's main love interest (of course she would rather die than feel the same way about him). Being an assistant, she has dreams of debuting and becoming a real mangaka. She has a love-hate relationship with Aito which can range from her going along with his perverted schemes to acting like a dominating yandere around him. Mihari is Aito's editor and friend from high school who has long had a crush on him. Aito has no clue of course because Mihari is your typical, lovable tsundere. Rinna, a well-endowed airhead, and Sena, a spoiled-rotten weakling, are much less important and only have a few important scenes despite being main characters. The animation is fairly well done for an ecchi anime. Despite all of it's focus on panties, the amount of ecchi content is probably not as much as you're expecting. There are more moments with sexual innuendos and Aito asking to see panties than there are actual moments of near-nudity. The character designs are average and since most of the anime takes place inside of Aito's apartment studio, the characters are usually seen close up and tend to avoid being shown with minimal detail when far away from the viewer like many shows do to save some of the animation budget. Still, this means there are not too many scenery changes, though there are still a beach/hot spring episode and several trips to lingerie stores in the mall. As for the sound, the music is typical an for ecchi and comedy anime. Most of the time it is light-hearted, but it can get intense to match Aito's bizarre outbreaks. Still, it does nothing more than fit the mood fairly well at the time and is often unnoticeable. "Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to" is a fairly entertaining, simple, and short (12 minute long episodes) ecchi comedy. If that's all your looking for, then you've found something you'll enjoy. If you're looking for one of the best ecchi shows out there, or something with tons of nudity, then you'll probably be disappointed. The show does get a little better as it goes and as you grow somewhat attached to the characters (I personally enjoyed Mihari with her crush on Aito the most and I was happy that there was an entire episode dedicated to that). Also, if you're going into this expecting a lot of focus on making manga, you would be better to check out something like Bakuman as this only occasionally focuses on how tiring the process can really be.

Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to The Animation, is simply an anime about a guy named Aito who is a manga artist, and works closely with various people, such as Ashisu. The show has a harem-like feel since it is a 'one guy, lots of girls', but no matter how perverted Aito is, he does not have any intention to do any of the girls wrong, even if what he says and does, comes off the wrong way. Story: To be blunt, there is very little story to the show, aside from Aito being a perverted manga artist, and Ashisu wanting to be amanga artist herself. From the first episode to the last, there is no real progression in the story. Art: I do not know how to properly describe it, but the style is a nice and simple design that is good overall. The many exaggerations used in different cases, along with the facial expressions when certain things were said, were well done. Sound: The music, although minimal, was fine, and the sound effects used for many awkward and non-awkward scenes, were perfect. Enjoyment: I enjoyed the show because it had the right mix of silly and perverted humor, without overly using the typical ecchi things like 'guy falls on girl and gropes breasts' or 'guy bends over to tie shoe and looks up at girls panties', so it gave it the right amount to be enjoyable, without being too overly weird or creepy. Overall, the show was not bad. The only gripe I have with it, was simply that the episodes, were only 13 minutes long, instead of the usual 24 minutes. So in short, if you enjoy silly and perverted humor that doesn't have the overload of ecchi cliches, then you should enjoy this.

Welcome to the 13 minute classic - Mangaka-san to Assist-san to The Animation. Story: 7/10 The story in itself isn't anything special, of course. It follows the perverted, young mangaka Aito Yuuki, which, because of his lack of zeal, is about to miss the deadline once again. The story is pure comedy, so I don't really mind if its not worked out perfectly. Art: 7/10 Cute character designs, as well as good backgrounds and just as good animations definitely help making a good anime. Just like in this case. The colors are lively, the qualitiy is consistent, nothing to rant about. Sound: 8/10 Kugimiya Rie in action. I think I don't needto tell much. But since I like her, I'll do so nonetheless. The CVs are top notch. The seiyus of Kirito/Sora, Kagura/Louise/Shana, Haqua/Yotsugi/Yukino as well as Tsukihi/Index just deliver. Newcomer Noto Arisa does a good job as well. Next, openings and endings. The opening "Junsui na Fujunbutsu" stood out and perfectly sets the mood for the 13 minutes to come. The ending on the other hand, while still a good song, is rather unmemorable. BGMs suffer from the same cause. Good, but unmemorable. They do complement the anime though. Characters: 8/10 The characters aren't new at all, instead, they're pretty much archetypical, yet still really likeable. The interactions between the characters are hillarious, but the characters miss a bit of background story. There IS backgroundstory, yes, but not that much. But then again, its an comedy anime. My personnal favorite Sena got me to the 8 points though. The second-best role of Kugimiya Rie up to date, with only Kagura being even better, but not as loveable though. Enjoyment: 9/10 I ended up laughting every episode, so why not 10 points? Because this anime also holds the hardest borderline experience of all anime. (***SPOILER***) Beware of Episode 8 (***SPOILER END***) It really gave me the creeps, but at the same time made me jealous... Overall: 8/10 Definitely a great comedy anime to calm down. Having just 12 episodes á 13 minutes predistines it as a filler to calm down, or when you want to relax on some busy days. Recommended for nearly everyone, who doesn't mind a fair share of ecchi and dirty jokes.

Somewhere in me is a cynic that I refuse to give in to, because I don’t want to make the mistake of judging shows by their cover. And every so often, I have reason to be optimistic, as a number of shows I’ve doubted have proven to be not just pleasant surprises, but fantastic works in their own right. But damn it, Japan, when you release shows like this, it’s very hard to stay positive. ‘The Mangaka and His Assistants’ focuses on the daily lives of manga artist Yuki and his all-female assistants. When he’s not drawing manga, he’s usually trying to subject them to hisperverted desires. Among the assistants, Rinna would go along with him if Sena, Mahiru, and Sahoto aren’t there to stop her, while the latter three thrash him for his advances. This is the entire show, and unfortunately there are deeper problems than the humor not being to one’s liking. A major problem with The Mangaka and His Assistants is its cast lacks development, personality, or anything I could use to call them interesting. Everyone who isn’t Rinna has two personalities, with nothing between to make those two sides believable as part of the same person; Yuki is perverted then nice, Sahoto is indifferent and then motivated, while Mahiru and Sena are basically the same character, feisty on the outside but warm on the inside. Not that Rinna is any better, because the way she would accept Yuki’s advances were it not for the others is disturbing. It isn’t just a lack of development, but how much that development doesn’t make sense. Yuki is relentless in his perverse advances and Sena, Mahiru, and Sahoto all bash him for it. Makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is Sena and Mahiru showing signs of falling for Yuki, supposedly because he’s a nice guy despite his perversion, except that even in flashbacks, we don’t see enough of Yuki being that nice guy. The only one who doesn’t fall for Yuki is Sahoto, and even then she’s supposedly going to stay with him because she pities him. Yeah. Really. It gets even better when the show tries to justify its lack of development in favor of Yuki being perverted. His main reason for making manga is because he wants to draw panties, and Mahiru points out that the reason his manga is losing popularity is because he’s focusing too much on panties and not enough on the story. Quite frankly this sort of self-referential humor only works when the show is at least decent, but do things sound even decent so far? But fine, clearly asking for decent characters is too much. Too bad the humor can be outright repulsive. There is a scene where Yuki is crossdressing so he can understand what it’s like being a woman. After being shrugged off by his assistants, one of them falls asleep. He then tries to breast feed that sleeping girl so he can ‘also’ understand what it’s like being a mom. The girl wakes up with a mouthful of man chest and promptly thrashes him. This scene was so uncomfortable I had to stop the episode. Comedies are not supposed to do that. Actually, most of comedy in this show—and by extension, most of the show itself—is just uncomfortable. Between the brand of humor, lack of development, and self-awareness, I sometimes wonder if the show is just poking fun at the reason people watch ecchi shows. Are we supposed to go ‘good thing I’m not part of that audience!’ or ‘at least I’m not as depraved as that guy!’? Maybe some people can find this funny, but I don’t. All the humor did was remind me of people who really can’t divorce reality from fiction, on top of reinforcing bad stereotypes of Japanese animation. The animation itself is serviceable but nothing impressive or distinct. But aside from the lack of inspiration to differentiate between Sena and Mahiru, the characters designs are at least pleasant to look at thanks to somewhat vibrant colors. The sound isn’t all that great either, lacking much of a proper soundtrack, but nothing is particularly out of place. The aesthetics of this show on a whole are just really, really standard. I just wish I could describe this show as even being ‘standard.’ While I wasn’t expecting something groundbreaking, I did expect a reasonable story or at least some decent characters. Unfortunately there’s uncomfortable humor in place of development on top of the show trying to shrug off its own faults. Even if you’re an ecchi fan—no wait, ESPECIALLY if you’re an ecchi fan—skip this patronizing, heartless garbage. I say ‘heartless’ because even something like Mayo Chiki really tries. Amagami tries. Mashiro Symphony tries. This show doesn’t. It doesn’t understand that panties and fanservice only go so far, because what any kind of show needs is heart. And for The Mangaka and His Assistants, it isn’t something they’re going to have no matter how many times they go back to the drawing board.